Not my words. Written by Drew Bowie, but I think they are important and everyone, no matter what your feelings about anything and everything trans SHOULD read.
"We recently watched the Pixar film, "Up." I think most people know the opening montage and what a heart string puller it is. But what got me on this viewing were the events immediately after that.
Mr Frederickson, having survived Mrs Frederickson, and now living on his own in a modest home is surrounded by construction noise as a corporation now occupies all the surrounding land around him. Mr Frederickson is woken early each morning by the sound of jackhammers, bulldozers, megaphones, and all sorts of cacophony that major construction brings. All of this is done right up to the very edge of his home, and continues all day. He is never given a reprieve from this monolith of capitalism as it surrounds and penetrates every waking moment of his life.
Add to this that the project is overseen by nameless, faceless men who are waiting and watching, ready to leap upon the merest crack in Mr Frederickson's behaviour for their own exploitation to their fullest legal capabilities.
As it happens, one day Mr Frederickson does crack. The constant noise, the vague legal threats coated in a thin sheen of kindness, the ever present threat of a large, well funded group hovering, waiting for him to do something, anything, all takes its toll. And all it takes then is for one of these men outside his house to make the smallest intrusion beyond the line, and Mr Frederickson hits him with his cane.
The men in suits are delighted. Here's the break they need. The man who got hit by a feeble octogenarian plays up the alleged injury for all its worth. Finally, here is the excuse they need.
Mr Frederickson is then taken to court. Nothing that has led to this moment matters. Not the constant noise, not the eradication of his neighbourhood and support network, or the isolation that came with it. Nor the hundreds of tiny intrusions and violations that occurred that built up to that one moment where it all became too much and Mr Frederickson swung his walking stick. For this, Mr Frederickson was now in the wrong, and the full weight of punishment was upon him.
This is what it's like to be Transgender now.
We are having our support cut off. We are being socially isolated by a right wing push to brand us all as dangerous to children. We are being legislated against, attacked in the streets, and we have a concerted, organised and well funded effort to remove us from any form of public life. This is particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom, but we are also feeling the effects in Australia.
And amid all this, even among constant 24/7 online abuse and an increasingly hostile social media landscape where it's apparently acceptable to label all of us abusers and paedophiles, we must remain unfailingly polite, calm, and level headed. The moment we show any singular crack in our armour and retaliate to this constant baiting, we immediately become the aggressors. If we are even remotely rude to someone who is spamming us with for example, instructions on how to tie a noose, we are the ones who are being aggressive and "unable to have a debate." If we respond in any form to the multitude of dog whistles these fascists use against us, we're the ones who are now attacking them. And this isn't limited to just the individual. The actions of any singular Trans person is unfairly reflected on us all. It's acceptable in these bigot's eyes to abuse a Trans person in Australia, because a Trans person in America finally had enough of their neighbour's constant harassment and kicked their letterbox over.
It has gotten so insidiously ridiculous that recently, a Trans woman who ran in a London marathon and placed something like 5,159th, was made to hand back her participation medal which all entrants who completed the run received. This was a leading story for several days with no mention of the fact the woman in question had raised over £30K for charity by running. None of that mattered.
Meanwhile, we must continue living in a tiny house, where it feels like most of our neighbourhood has already moved away, surrounded by an ocean of hatred, bigotry, and eradication all backed by a well funded movement dedicated to having us removed from that house. The difference is we don't have a retirement home to go to. Forcing us from that house is going to kill us. And we exist in this state in the full knowledge that mostly, no one else even seems to care."
Drew Bowie
